Day 11: Olympia, Zakynthos

Plan for the day

We planned to visit two destinations, the first was archaeological site of Olympia and the second was Zakynthos island.

For the last part of journey we would need to drive our car onto a car ferry at Kyllini Port and sail to Zakynthos Island. I had got the go ahead from Budget Car Rental to drive the rented car onto a ferry. This agreement was very crucial or if there was any mishap on the ferry there would be no insurance coverage for the car.

Route for the day

Breakfast at Messinian Bay

Our room in Hotel Messinian Bay faced the sea and the view in the morning was very serene and refreshing. I sat at my balcony for a long time admiring the view and was reluctant to leave for my breakfast. 

View from our room

Breakfast was free as it was part of the room package. We ate our breakfast in the dining room cum bar. We seemed to be the only customers around as the dining room was empty except for us and a service staff. Surprising breakfast though was basic was very delicious and nicely prepared.

Lunch at Ambrosia

Unlike yesterday, today was a more relaxing day as we only had two destinations to visit. We left our hotel at around 10.30am and drove for about 2 hours travelling 120km to reach the Olympia town. The town was just before the archaeological site. The town was nice and modern with plentiful of hotels, shops and restaurants.

There was a lovely taverna called Ambrosia just beside the car park near the archaeological site. The taverna was very prettily decorated with many pots of colourful flowers, it looked very inviting and it served authentic Greek food. Since it was already 1pm we decided to eat our lunch before walking the Olympia site. Well the food at Ambrosia was as nice as the place looked.

Lunch at Ambrosia (Olympia town)

Archaeological Site Of Olympia (UNESCO)

From the car park we had to walk about 10 to 15 minutes before we entered the ground of Olympia and before we could see the ruins.

Philippeion

We were not expecting much from the site as based on my online research the site was very much a pile of rocks. We were visiting it because of its international significant. We headed straight to a familiar structure, it was the site where the Olympic torch was lighted a few months before the start of every Olympic Games. Finally I learnt the name of the structure, it was called Philippeion. This once elegant circular building was dedicated by Philip II, king of Macedon, a chariot racing Olympic Champion himself. The monument was completed by his son, Alexander the Great, after his assassination, in 336 BC.

The central part of Olympia was dominated by the temple of Zeus, with the temple of Hera parallel to it.

The remains of Zeus Temple

Olympia was the site of the ancient Olympic Games. It functioned as a meeting place for worship and other religious and political practices as early as the 10th century BC. The Olympic Games were closely linked to the religious festivals of the cult of Zeus, but were not an integral part of a rite. The Olympic Games started back in 776 BC, they continued for nearly 12 centuries until Emperor Theodosius decreed in 393 AD that all such "pagan cults" be banned. 

It was a great pity that Olympia was in such a poor state today. Most of the columns had fallen onto the ground into many pieces. The whole site looked like a huge 3-D jigsaw board with so many stone puzzle pieces all over the place. How I wished somebody could piece them together again! Wishful thought that would not happen in my lifetime.

All that was remained of the stadium was this arch entrance, The Krypte 

The Krypte

The largest building (ruin) at the the site was the Leonidaion, it was a sort of a luxury hostel that housed important athletes and guests taking part in the Olympic Games at Olympia. 

Leonidaion

Leonidaion was constructed around 330 BC and was funded and designed by Leonidas of Naxos (a benefactor and an architect). The original building had a square central open court surrounded by 44 Doric peristyle columns. On each side of the square court were rooms. Outside the rooms ran continuous rows of Ioanian decorated columns, 138 in total. 

At the site all we saw were rows of pedestals and not row of Ioanian or Doric style columns. 

On the surface the archaeological site of Olympia were just piles of rocks. Though there was not much to see, I did not regret visiting it. When I walked among the ruins and read the information tablets detailing the significant of a building, it usages, its history and its graphic mock up, I was able to picture the structure in my mind and the grandiose of this place back in history. 

Kyllini Port

We drove for about an hour from Olympia archaeological site to Kyllini port which was 65 km away. This was a port on the Ionian coast on the mainland side and was served by a number of ferry routes to several Ionian islands. We reached the port at about 5pm and bought ferry tickets for four adults (€7.60 per adult) and one car(€37.90) to Zakynthos

Route of Kyllini Port

The ferry was very huge, with two lower decks for cars and two upper decks for passengers. The passenger decks were comfortable with sofa chairs and tables and cafeterias. The ferry trip to Zakynthos took about 60 minutes.

We were at Zakynthos to visit its world famous "Shipwretch cove", and my impression of the island was one with long stretches of beautiful beaches. I thought the port town would be a quiet place and did not expect to see a densely built up port town when we arrived at Zakynthos Island.

Sailing into Zakynthos Port

The convenient of having a car was once the ferry berthed we got into it, drove out of the ferry, out of the port and into the town. No time wasted at all.

Dinner and Night shots

When I was in the ferry, I used my handphone to carry out some online searches for hotels with reasonable room rates, good reviews and preferably at the port front of Zakynthos . I found Dali Hotel which seemed to the best among them. After the ferry berthed we only needed to drive 1 km to Dali Hotel. 

We left our luggage after booking two rooms and drove uphill on the route that the hotel owner had drawn for us on a map. There was a cafe beside a church up the Bochali hill that had a "fantastic" night view of the harbour, that was what he said. 

Unfortunately we were unable to find the cafe. The sun had set, the roads up the hill were not well lighted, the driving instruction marked on the paper map was not clear and after making several wrong turns into dead ends and driving onto road that was too narrow and steep to be even called a road, we gave up and returned to port. How I wished I had insisted on marking the location of the cafe on my google map!

After dinner we drove to the jetty to take some night shots of the port front. Absolutely stunning.

Zakynthos Port Front with Church of St Dionysios

Though we did not manage to find the cafe that was beside a church up in Bochali Hill earlier in the evening when we drove up the hill, we somehow manage to find it through our camera lens when standing at the Jetty. It was the most colourfully lighted place on the hill above the port town. We could see the red sun umbrellas of the outdoor cafe.

Cafe beside Church on Bochali Hill

Too bad we did not manage to find the place for I was sure the night view of the lighted port and town would be fantastic from up there.

Our Accomodation for the Night - Dali Hotel

Dali was a four storey building. Its owner was a very friendly man. We paid €50 for each of the two rooms that we took. The rooms came with free breakfast. The owner was kind enough to offer my husband and I the honeymoon room without extra charge.

Hotel Dali

The rooms in Dali Hotel were very luxurious well worth the money we paid. The only shortcoming was that there was no lift from the first to the second level, luckily the owner was very kind to help us bring up the luggage.

Our honeymoon room was on the roof level which was divided into two sectors. One sector faced the front and was the living quarter of the owner and his family. Our room and balcony was in the other sector that faced inland. The balcony was huge and it offered a wonderful view of the town. At night we could see the lighted rooftops of the houses inland and several church towers that were built mid level on the hill.

Night scene from the balcony of our room 

Beautiful room and bathroom

Day 8: Last day in Santorini

Plan for the day

This was our last day in Santorini and we intended to visit places that were on the way to the airport and around the airport.

route from Hotel Sofia to Santorini Airport

Our last destination would be the airport where we would return our car and take a flight from Santorini to Athens. At Athens International airport we would pick up a rental car and wait for the arrival of two friends before driving to our hotel for the night.

Returning the Car

After breakfast we checked out of Sofia Hotel and packed all our luggage into the car. We drove the car to the Avis Car Rental Outlet at Fira town where the Avis staff conducted a inspection for damages and signed off the return paper. We would still continue to use the car until about 6 pm before returning the car at the Airport. There would be no Avis Staff at the airport so we would just park the car at the Avis carpark lot and leave the key under the floor mat as agreed.

Random Driving Around

We did not have any specific destinations in mind for this last day at Santorini, we just needed to be at the airport by about 6 pm. We drove into Thira and wanted to come down for a walk around town. Unfortunately it was not easy to find a carpark space near the town center and by the time we found a carpark space it was too far from the town center that we decided we might as well get out of town.

Thira as view from inland

After leaving Thira we drove inland and turned into Karterados town. Karterados was built beside a stream in a ravine in the 17th century. The original dwellings were cave houses built deep into the rock face. We saw a traditional windmill at the Karterados village square. So far most of the windmills that we had seen were painted white. This one was not all white. It looked well maintained with its fan blades still attached.

Windmill at Karterados Village Square

Along the way we stopped at a few churches as churches were usually the most prominent structures. From far they could be spotted by their high domes and high bell towers.

Churches of Santorini

Lunch at Monolithos Beach

After Karterados village we drove down to Monolithos Beach about 4 km away. Monolithos Beach was situated just beside the airport.

Monolithos Beach

Captain Loizos Fish restaurant

The beach was deserted with only a few people around. There were just a couple of restaurants at the beach and we went into Captain Loizos Fish Restaurant which looked like the only restaurant that was opened for lunch.

We were the only customers and we ordered a fish meal, a swordfish, on the recommendation of the waitress. I had never eaten swordfish so I wanted to give it a try. Well the swordfish tasted rather plain, nothing memorable.

Swordfish meal

In terms of looks Monolithos beach was not as beautiful as Red Beach and Perissa Black Beach. It was a normal beach with rough waves and strong wind.

After lunch we still had about 2 hours to kill so we strolled aimlessly on the beach. There was not much to do on the beach so we ended up sitting on a chair and propped our legs on a ledge. The cool wind and the warm sun and the rhythmic motion of the waves lured us into a short nap.

Lazing on a long chair at Monolithos Beach

Three days in Santorini

Our three days had come to an end. We had a great time and three days were just nice, not too long or too short. The most memorable parts of Santorini were the caldera towns, Fira, Firostefanie, Imerovigli and Oia. All were stunning when viewed from the Caldera side. Ammoudi Bay was also very beautiful. 

We were able to enjoy three wonderful sunset and three glorious sunrise views. So by the time we left Santorini we felt no regrets.

Back to Athens

We flew out of Santorini on the 8.25 pm flight and reached Athens at about 9.10 pm. We flew on Olympic Air and the fare which included a 23 kg luggage was €135 per person. We had chosen to fly because the flight took only 45 minutes as compared to a cruise trip of at least 8 hours.

Santorini to Athens

If we were to travel by ferry back to Athens we would arrive at the port around midnight and I felt that it would be too difficult to pick up a rental car and get into the town. I would have considered a ferry trip if it arrived at Athens in the morning then I would have booked a room on the ship for two and sleep our way to Athens.

Picking up a Car (Budget)

At the airport we went to the Budget Car Rental Service Counter to pick up our car which we had already reserved online two months ago. The total cost was €670 for 13 days with GPS, Collision Damage Waiver and Theft Protection Coverage. One of the most important considerations for choosing Budget was that it covered Ferry insurance so we could drive our rental car onto ferries when we visited four Ioanian islands.

My only disappointment was the GPS unit that the Budget staff handed over to us. It was a very old model with very limited functions. It would not be easy to get to the doorstep of our destinations as the GPS did not accept destination by co-ordinates. To enter the name of destination into the GPS would be very difficult for us as we were not familiar with Greek Alphabet. I always preferred to use GPS system that allowed destination selection by entering numbers be it co-ordinates, mapcodes or phone numbers as these numbers had no language barrier. 

The only way we could use this old GPS would be to select our destination by using its inbuilt map which would get us to the general location, there after we would have to navigate by google maps. It was a great thing that we had 24/7 data connection.

Hotel Giorgio

I had booked two double rooms at Hotel Giorgio for €40 each room per night. The hotel charges covered free parking, wifi and breakfast.

One of my major considerations for picking Hotel Giorgio was its safety which I gathered from reading its customer reviews. Hotel Giorgio was located on the outskirt of Athens which was fine with us as we would not be visiting Athens. 

The drive from the Airport to Hotel Giorgio was very smooth since it was already at night and for most parts of our journey we were on the highway.

Route from Athens International Airport to Hotel Giorgio

Though it was already past midnight we had no problem checking in as I had already informed the hotel of our late arrival. The carpark was just beside the hotel so there was not much to walk. Overall the hotel looked rather modern, new and clean. The room size was just comfortable.